Physician Assistant vs Nurse Practitioner

The world needs more physician assistants and more nurse practitioners. The retirement of the Baby Boomer generation has led to a major warp in the demographics of America, creating an aging population that needs a greater amount of medical attention. While the education requirements for medical doctors cause a glut in the pipeline of potential caregivers, the need for the skills of physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) is growing further. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), both professions are set to grow at a blistering pace that’s around four times the national average for all careers.

To the unitiated, physician assistants and nurse practitioners seem to serve a similar role, performing many of the general tasks a doctor would perform: prescribing medication, ordering medical tests, and designing treatment plans. They’re not just nurses and assistants, but they’re not quite medical doctors either. So what are they exactly and what’s the difference between them?

While there’s a lot of overlap between the two positions, think of it like this: physician assistants go wide, and nurse practitioners go deep. Physician assistants are trained to treat a broad spectrum of patients, while nurse practitioners target a specific population. It starts in school, where physician assistants get a broader education in their graduate programs and nurse practitioners go deep into an area of focus. This is also reflected in the certification process, where physician assistants take a generalist examination for licensure, while nurse practitioners often pursue advanced population-specific certifications. It’s generally easier to switch specialties as a physician assistant because a nurse practitioner will need to undergo more formal training requirements and additional certification steps.